Seen from a grouse's perspective

      

As the rain beats down I turn to the bookshelves, and of course to the Ted Hughes book of 'Remains of Elmet', sombre photographs by Fay Godwin.  A dark book in all senses...

   

Grouse Butts

Where all the lines embrace and lie down,

Roofless hovels of turf, tapped by harebells,

Weather humbler.

In a world bare of men

They are soothing as ruins

Where the stones roam again free.

But inside each one, under sods, nests

Of spent cartridge cases

Are acrid with life.

Those dead looking fumaroles are forts.

Monkish cells, communal, strung out, solitary,

The front-line emplacements of a war nearly religious -

Dedicated to the worship

Of costly, beautiful guns.

A religion too arcane

For the grouse who grew up to trust their kingdom

And its practical landmarks.

I remember taking these photographs, and watching the grouse amongst the heather, feeling a very similar mood as to the fortress like appearance of these butts that Hughes had about their warlike markings on the moor; all that energy and money pitched against a small bird - what arrogance!